PCI defers meet due to lack of quorum

The newly- reconstituted Press Council of India, which has been plagued by controversies over its composition, deferred its meeting on Wednesday to April 23 due to lack of quorum as only eight members have been notified so far by the government. The quorum requires at least 11 members, while the Press Council Act provides that the council shall consist of a chairman and 28 other members.

“As the council was notified by the government, there was no option but to convene the meeting of these members. I apprised the members about the quorum needed for the meeting as soon as the meeting commenced. There being lack of quorum, the meeting is adjourned to April 23,” chairman Justice C. K. Prasad ( Retd) told agencies.

Only four members — Vinay P. Sahasrabuddhe, Swapan Dasgupta, Sushma Yadav and T. G. Venkatesh Babu — came for the meeting but the quorum to convene the meeting is 11 members, including the chairman, Justice Prasad said.

On April 9, eight media bodies wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to defer Wednesday’s meeting of the “truncated” Council, alleging that the PCI chairman has adopted “arbitrary” procedure to reconstitute it.

Sources stated that the notice is given 21 days before the meeting of the Council and it was expected that the government could have notified other names during that time which would have made the quorum. He also noted that this was for the first time that the government has not notified sufficient names, resulting in lack of quorum.

On March 16, the I& B ministry had notified the names of eight nominated members of the reconstituted PCI. Apart from Babu, Sahasrabuddhe, Dasgupta, and Yadav, names of other members notified by the government included, Meenakshi Lekhi, Prathap Simha, Manan Kumar Mishra and K. Sreenivasarao.